A. Okuyama

NEUTRAL KAON PHOTOPRODUCTION AT LNS, TOHOKU UNIVERSITY

The elementary photo-strangeness production process has been intensively studied based on the high-quality data of the charged kaon channel, γ + p → K+ + Λ(Σ0). However, there had been no reliable data for the neutral kaon channel γ + n → K0 + Λ(Σ0) and the theoretical investigations suffer seriously from the lack of the data. In order to have reliable data for the neutral kaon photo-production data, substantial effort has been made to measure the γ + n → K0 + Λ process in the π+π- decay channel, using a liquid deuterium target and a tagged photon beam (Eγ = 0.8-1.1 GeV) in the threshold region at the Laboratory of Nuclear Science (LNS), Tohoku University. We have taken exploratory data quite successfully with the use of Neutral Kaon Spectrometer (NKS) at LNS-Tohoku in 2003 and 2004. The data is compared to theoretical models and it indicates a hint that the K0 differential cross section has a backward peak in the energy region. The second generation of the experiment, NKS2, is designed to extend the NKS experiment by considerably upgrading the original neutral kaon spectrometer, fully replacing the spectrometer magnet, tracking detectors and all the trigger counters. The new spectrometer NKS2 has significantly larger acceptance for neutral kaons compared with NKS, particularly covering forward angles and much better invariant mass resolution. The estimated acceptance of NKS2 is three (ten) times larger for than that of NKS. The spectrometer is newly constructed and installed at the Laboratory of Nuclear Science, Tohoku University in 2005. The deuterium target data was taken with tagged photon beam in 2006-2007. We will report recent results of NKS2 in this paper. Additionally, a status of the upgrade project that gives us larger acceptance and capability of K0 + Λ coincidence measurement will be presented.

Study of Double Delta Photoproduction on the Deuteron in the Energy Region of Eγ = 0.65–1.1 GeV

We studied the reaction d(γ, π+π−p)n with the Neutral Kaon Spectrometer 2 (NKS2) in a photon energy region of Eγ = 0.65-1.1 GeV at Research Center for Electron Photon Science (ELPH), Tohoku University. In this reaction, existence of the process where two nucleons are excited to Delta particles in the intermediate state was found. It is suggested that the nuclear effects cannot be ignored. By exploring the double Delta photoproduction, we investigated the double pion photoproduction on the deuteron, and the N∗-N interaction which contributes to the intermediate state of this reaction. The cross section of double Delta photoproduction was measured by the TAGX[1] and the NKS[2] in the photon energy region of Eγ = 0.57-0.85 GeV and 0.8-1.1 GeV, respectively. The reported cross sections are not consisted at 0.8 GeV. The theoretical calculation[3] does not reproduce the data above 0.8 GeV. We aim to precise measure the double Delta photoproduction in the photon energy region of Eγ = 0.65-1.1 GeV. Charged particles were detected using the NKS2 which has the large acceptance. The mass of the charged particles was calculated from measurements of the β and their respective momentum, allowing for the identification of π, π− and proton events. The d(γ, π+π−p)n events were extracted with a kinematical cut on the missing momentum. Double Delta excitation in the intermediate state was shown using the invariant mass distributions for πp and π−n. In this presentation, I will report on the invariant mass distributions for πN and the cross section of the double Delta photoproduction.

Measurement of Charged Pion Photoproduction at ELPH

We investigated the charged pion photoproduction on the deuteron in the energy region Eγ = 0.65− 1.1 GeV at Research Center for Electron Photon Science (ELPH), Tohoku University. The photon absorption by a nucleus mainly takes place on a single nucleon at energies above the first resonance region. The rest nucleons are called as the spectator and this process is called as the quasi-free process. The pion is emitted in the subsequent de-excitation process of the nucleon resonance excited through the absorption of the photon. The deuteron is the loosely bound system of the proton and the neutron and the photoreaction on it is considered to be dominated by the quasi-free process. However, significant contribution of the two nucleon absorption process in the π+π− photoproduction on the deuteron was measured in the energy region from 0.6 to 1.1 GeV[1, 2]. The importance of the nucleon resonances and the intermediate and final state interaction was suggested by the theoretical studies[3, 4]. For the detailed study of the intermediate states, precise experimental data, not only the total cross section but also the differential cross sections are required. The ABC effect [5] is a nuclear fusion reaction which is known to be related to the excitation of the two nucleon resonances (ΔΔ) in the intermediate state and their interaction. It is distinguished by a structure in the mass distribution of isoscalar pion pair[6, 7, 8]. One of our aim is the search for the ABC like effect in the photon induced double pion production reaction on the deuteron in the analysis of the similar final state with ABC effect (γd → π+π−d) and the explicit ΔΔ excitation (γd → ΔΔ → π+π−pn). The reactions d(γ, π+π−d) and d(γ, π+π−p)n were measured using the Neutral Kaon Spectrometer 2 (NKS2) at ELPH. The NKS2 is the magnetic spectrometer with the geometrical acceptance roughly 1/4 of the whole solid angle, dedicated for the multi-particle tracking. By refining the calibration of the detectors and the tracking procedures, the increased mass reconstruction resolution enabled us the efficient identification of these reactions with three charged particles in the final state. Simulation studies have been carried out for the extraction of the contributions of the intermediate states. We report on the current status of the analysis for the derivation of the cross sections of these reactions with the extraction of the intermediate states.

Investigation of Strangeness Photoproduction near the Threshold at ELPH, Tohoku University

Masashi Kaneta1, Brian Beckford1, Petr Bydžovský2, Takeshi Fujibayashi1, Takao Fujii1, Yu Fujii1, Kenta Futatsukawa1, Toshiyuki Gogami1, Yuncheng Han3, Osamu Hashimoto1 ∗, Kentaro Hirose4, Kenji Hosomi1, Ryotarou Honda1, Aran Iguchi1, Takatsugu Ishikawa4, Hiroki Kanda1, Yusuke Kaneko1, Yuma Kasai1, Taito Kawasaki1, Chigusa Kimura1, Shogo Kiyokawa1, Takeshi Koike1, Kazushige Maeda1, Nayuta Maruyama1, Masao Matsubara1, Koji Miwa1, Yohei Miyagi1, Sho Nagao1, Satoshi N. Nakamura1, Takashi Nishizawa1, Akira Okuyama1, Miloslav Sotona2,∗, Tadaaki Tamae4, Hirokazu Tamura1, Kyo Tsukada1, Nobu Terada1, Tieshan Wang3, Fumiya Yamamoto1, Takeshi O. Yamamoto1, and Hirohito Yamazaki4 (the NKS2 collaboration)